Baltimore's "Running Man" Attacked on a Run

Baltimore’s Keith Boissiere, known by locals as “The Running Man,” says he was attacked by two men while running last Thursday around 3:30 p.m. Boissiere’s daily running routine of at least 20 miles a day for the past 31 years has made him a local icon. Locals took to social media to express their outrage after news of the attack spread.

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Boissiere said he was running through Baltimore’s Mill Hill neighborhood November 13 when two men pushed him down on the ground. When he got up, they punched him several times, blackening his eye and leaving him with a cut on his face.

Boissiere then flagged down a police officer to report the incident. Boissiere said his attackers accused him of following a young girl, but that the police officer he flagged down did not think that was the case. Boissiere is still deciding whether to press charges, reports WBAL-TV Baltimore.

Since the attack, many people who know him from witnessing his daily running routine have sought him out to express their support and concern for him, and others have taken to social media.

"It makes me feel really good to know that not everybody in Baltimore is what I call the scum of Baltimore," Boissiere told WBAL-TV Baltimore. "I'm not about to stop. I like to run, and I'm going to just keep on going."

One of the factors that has contributed to the 62-year-old’s fame is that he regularly runs in the middle of the day, as long as the temperature is below 90 degrees, and can often be spotted in the same places at the same times daily. Ironically, he told the Baltimore City Paper in 2005, “I read a lot of stories about people getting attacked at night, so I don’t like to run in the dark.”

The Trinidad and Tobago native came to the United States to attend college. At age 32, he began to notice that he wasn’t as strong and fit as he had once been. He decided to take up running, but instead of starting small, he began by running 12 miles a day, the Baltimore City Paper reported.

By the early 1990s, 12 miles a day became 20, and Boissiere hasn’t stopped since. He never races but he loves to train. At one time, his favorite route carried him 45 miles from Baltimore to Washington, D.C. Once he arrived there, he would take the bus back home.

When asked by WBAL-TV Baltimore why he runs, Boissiere answered in a manner that perhaps only a runner can understand. “I like it," he said. "That's all – I like it.”

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